Lightweight, Stable Optical Benches in Silicon Carbide and Beryllium

As the world community, has become aware that exoplanets exist in abundance, it has inspired new observatories in search of Earth-like worlds. Technology development studies have highlighted the need for structures with extraordinary dimensional stability. Advanced materials such as silicon carbide and beryllium are costly and time consuming to manufacture. Using methods pioneered in carbon fiber composites, sandwich panels from silicon carbide and beryllium are proposed for lightweight, stiff, ultra-stable optical benches for instruments on new observatories such as LUVOIR and WFIRST. Assembled from flat stock and waterjet machined, the panels are extremely lightweight. A prototype panel is shown whose stiffness is a close match to the FEA. Fittings machined from Invar 39 for silicon carbide and AlBeMet for beryllium can be bonded to the panels to provide interfaces to optical mounts and optical components.

Potential NASA applications include the use of this technology for lightweight and ultra-stable optical benches for spaceflight or balloon borne instruments include those for LUVOIR and WFIRST.

Potential non-NASA applications include: � Military systems with similar requirements. � Commercial robotic systems that require high speed operation (e.g. gantry, assembly, pick-and-place, wafer handling).

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 4) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.